The present invention relates to a roller blind. More particularly this invention concerns such a blind which is suspended from a wall or ceiling above a window aperture or the like.
It is known to suspend a roller blind, by which is meant either a slat-type blind, a window-shade arrangement or the like above or adjacent an aperture to be covered by the blind. A mechanism is provided such as described in the above-identified copending application whose entire disclosure is herewith incorporated by reference for winding and unwinding the blind from a rod and for positioning it relative to the aperture to be covered. It is noted that such an assembly can also be used for any raisable or lowerable screen, map or the like.
The most common prior-art arrangement of a window blind or the like uses mechanism inside the rod about which the blind is windable in order to position this blind. Such mechanism is frequently failure-prone and can only be used to operate relatively light blinds whose length does not exceed a predetermined maximum. Each of the known window blinds must have at each end a mounting member so that if a plurality of such blinds are to be installed next to each other in front of a relatively large window or the like it is necessary to provide two mounting brackets for each of the blinds. This requires careful positioning of these brackets in order accurately to align the blinds and present the most attractive appearance. Nonetheless the finished assembly is fully exposed and, indeed, often considered rather unattractive.
A similar disadvantage prevails with the known type of arrangements wherein mounting units are provided at each end of the roller blind. The user must decide whether he or she chooses to operate the blind from the right-hand or left-hand mounting unit and must buy the correspondingly constructed unit. Thereafter it is necessary to provide a dummy or idler unit for the other end, once again using two mounting units for each blind. The overall assembly has the unattractiveness described above with reference to the lighter-duty window blinds so that it is often necessary to provide a totally separate valence or the like to cover the mechanisms.